Peru in a nutshell...

So many things to tell, so I will do it in different headlines...it´s like an essay, I know...

Mi español
As expected I am the absolute nerd in my class. I love practising my spanish everywhere and any time. I do my homework every day and much more, I learn all the verbs and words by heart constantly. In class I am one of those annoying people who whispers all the answers to the questions. I´m the one who asks ´when do we get past tense, what is the rule for superlatives, I need to know the possessive pronouns´. According to my fellow students I am a walking dictionairy and even if I dont know the word, I´ll take a French word and make it sound Spanish. And often that works too.
Conclusion; I love learning Spanish! And sorry if my English is getting worse...

Spare time
At school there are 2 kind of students. The ones who are early 20, first time away from home and absolutely love going out. And you have the students who are in their late 20´s and 30´s, doing their spanish seriously and enjoy doing cultural things and see all the musea. Guess where I belong to...
By now I have seen most of all the historical places around Cusco (and there are a lot!) and I enjoyed some good hikes and busrides (not all...). And I went to see a Peruvian ´futbol´ match; a qualification match for the Copa Libertadores de America. I learned some rude words there while watching the most slow and boring soccer ever. It´s no Brasil or Argentina...The most excitement happened when the match ended (Cusco won with 1-0) and about 10 militairy police in full armour ran onto the field to protect the referees from angry hooligans...
Furthermore I enjoyed the salsa lessons with Dave (a friend of Patricks from NZ)...To be honest, Dave and I both suck at it...I went rockclimbing (yes Eefje!!) with Dave, Martina and Fiona. I hadn´t done it since Ireland (5 years ago); Back then I saw a friend of mine fall 10 metres down while climbing on cliffs...not good for my courage...But Martina made me come with her and I absolutely loved it. I did 3 climbs with Dave and it was amazing. Very promissing for NZ!!
Rafting (class III-IV) had to be done as well of course and, I am repeating myself, that was fabulous too. Marleene, Rudolf and I tried to go mountainbiking as well, but Dutch cycling experts as we are, we backed out after seeing the bikes (just when we got to our destination...). I mean, you don´t want to go biking when the brakes are not excisting, the gears are playing up that bad that you just cannot cycle and if the wheel is toughing the frame that firm that it makes it hard to go forward...No, even non Dutch would say no to that...

My Peruvian family
My family is very nice and friendly and I feel very welcome. Because of them my Spanish is improving quicker than most of my fellow students who all stay at the campus at school. I understand way more, but speaking is still a bit difficult at times. The mother of the family is a great cook and a ´real´ mother. The kind I never had and the kind that would drive me absolutely mad if it was my own mother. She straightens my cloths in the morning, she walks me to the door, she always checks whether I have enough money and every time I get up in the morning my breakfast awaits me.
At lunch I always tease the dad, and the daughters enjoy that of course. Whenever the dad tries to tease me back, I say annoyingly ´No entiendo´ which means ´I don´t understand´. You understand that we laugh a lot.

Religious Peru
Because of Easter there are a lot of festivities in town. There are many processions and heaps of praying. In some processions the people are traditionally dressed and they sing in Quechua (the language of the indigenous people). Very beautiful and it gave me goozebumps. Do I have a video of it? Yes, I have. But you better read the next story then...
On the monday before Easter they celebrate another thing as well. They have a massive procession for ´El Señor de los Temblores´. El Señor is the protector of Cusco and mainly the protector for the earthquakes. They organise a procession and carry El Señor on their back. To me it was just like Jesus on his cross except for the fact that he was black and he had indigenous features. Very interesting and to be honest moving as well to see so many people praying on the streets.